


safer with you

by leeinthesky



Category: Manifest (TV 2018)
Genre: Confessions of love, F/M, Falling In Love, Light Angst, ben is the smartest idiot around, but they were, of course, these idiots didn’t realize they were dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:14:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22150870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leeinthesky/pseuds/leeinthesky
Summary: ben looks at saanvi, in all of her quietly strong beauty, and he falls.he is learning that safe is relative.
Relationships: Saanvi Bahl/Ben Stone
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	safer with you

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY MANIFEST DAY! season two people! my hopes for this season should be obvious (BENVI), but we’ll see how this goes. also, i wrote this on a plane in three hours, so. sorry for any typos, mistakes, etc. let me know if you spot any! enjoy!
> 
> also i don’t own these nerds nbc please don’t sue me

benjamin stone has never been one for uncalculated risks. even when he was younger, he never did anything remotely scary before planning for every outcome, every worst possible situation. he never took a single one of michaela’s dares, because it was safer that way. he married grace because she loved him, and it was safe. he became a professor because he was good at it, and it was _safe_. 

flight 828 throws all of that out of the window. 

nothing is safe anymore. the callings come with intensifying frequency, and each is scarier than the next. ben cares about nothing except figuring out what happened on that plane. for himself. for his son. for the hundreds of people who are being snatched up by shadowy government figures or dying, dropping like flies in honey. he starts, for the first time in his life, taking risks. 

it’s new, to everyone around him. 

‘is this the new and improved ben stone?’ mick jokes one day after a particularly hairy save. the calling had been vague, and by the time they had driven upstate, it was almost to late. ‘what brought this on? it’s not just 828.’

part of it, ben thinks, is just him trying to rationalize. trying to make everything make sense so that his life can go back to normal. but what is _normal_ anymore? his mother is dead. his little olive, not so little anymore, is in high school, while her twin brother is just almost eleven. his wife, the mother of his children and the person he thought he’d love forever, is pregnant with another man’s child. she had not waited for him. how could she, when she did not know what was to come? 

‘this isn’t you,’ grace hisses the very last time they fight. ‘this isn’t you, and i want no part in it.’

could he ever be ben stone again? he wonders day after day in his tiny downtown apartment. can he go back to the person he was before?

ben mulls over michaela’s question until it burns into his brain like a neon sign. he closes his eyes at night and sees ‘what brought this on? it’s not just 828.’ it consumes him, taking up as much space in his brain as passenger manifests, flight routes, and weather patterns. 

he doesn’t know. not until one day, when it pours down on him on sixth avenue, easy as a late april’s rain shower. 

ben is at his favorite cafe, two blocks from his studio. it’s nearly noon, and he has lunch in front of him, but of course ben is on his laptop researching the latest calling. that’s when he spots her; she’s running across the street ( _jaywalking_ , his brain clocks. he can’t help being worried until she’s out of danger), talking animatedly on the phone. ben can’t tear his eyes off her somehow, knows he’s staring but follows the way her free hand gestures wildly and cards itself through her dark hair. 

saanvi. she’s been his salvation these past months, putting up with his frustration and grief and anger. she never pulls her punches, ever- in fact, saanvi has told ben _many_ times when he is being stupid or overreacting. but she’s also been there for him, and for that he is so, so grateful. ben hopes he’s been half as supportive. 

ben smiles at the way saanvi braces her hand against the wall to yell into her phone some more. who ever it is is getting a real beating from her, and ben can almost hear her through the glass. she hangs up with too much force, and has to take a few breaths before she can look up calmly. her eyes flit across the cafe glass and almost pass right over ben before coming back to land on him. saanvi instantly brightens, giving him that smile of hers that always leaves him feeling just a little warm and a little flustered, and makes her way inside to sit across from him. 

‘hi,’ saanvi says warmly, stealing a french fry off of ben’s plate. 

‘hey,’ he answers, swatting away her hand. ‘i don’t know who you were yelling at, but i would hate to be them right now. you were very fearsome.’

she laughs, high and bright, and ben’s breath catches in his throat. he’s not exactly sure why. 

‘just one of my residents.’ she shakes her head, still fiery and passionate about it. ‘he’s rude to the nurses, talks down to the kids, and has been coming in late. i was just telling him that he could either get it together, or find a new program to be a part of.’

ben isn’t sure what to say. ‘sorry’ doesn’t seem right. ‘bet you a twenty that he cleans up,’ he says instead. ‘i don’t see how anyone could pass up working with you.’

he cringes. ‘sorry’ would have been better. 

but saanvi preens just a little under the attention and takes the compliment (and another fry). ‘thank you. what are you working on?’

‘that calling, did you get it?’ ben is good at this. ben can do this part. even amongst everything going on with grace and his seeming inability to keep his chill around saanvi, ben is wonderful at compiling evidence. ‘i think it may have something to do with the police commissioner. see? look at his taxes for 2016, 2017, and 2018. but in 2019…’

saanvi nods, following along easily with her scientist’s brain. ‘he suddenly pays less. did you see that nbc special they did on his new mansion in southampton? there’s no way.’

‘exactly. but there’s got to be something bigger at play, the callings are never just this simple.’

this time, when she steals another fry, ben just sighs and pushes the plate towards her. saanvi looks up almost guiltily, like she hadn’t realized she was eating his food. ben supposes they share meals so much anyways, it just comes as second nature. he’s surprised to note that he doesn’t mind- the way she steals his food or the way they’ve been having meals together more and more often. 

it started off, ben supposes, as a way to keep each other accountable. both of them work much too hard, and he’ll be the first to admit that sometimes his determination gets in the way of his self care. saanvi got on him about it one day- _you need to take care of yourself too, ben_ \- and he’d shoot back that she forgot to eat sometimes too, and it snowballed until she showed up at his apartment door with three tupperwares full of food and said that if he ate, she’d eat too. so it’s their little ritual now, to show up at work or home with lunch, or to meet at some restaurant for dinner. he likes it. for the first time in months he has some semblance of normalcy. it feels nice. it feels-

_safe._

‘ben. _ben_. are you listening to me?’

saanvi is staring at him, her half of his sandwich frozen partway to her mouth, slight smile on her lips. 

ben pulls himself out of his thoughts. ‘i’m sorry,’ he tries to sound as apologetic as possible. ‘what were you saying?’

she shakes her head a little. ‘nothing. it’s okay, it was boring medical stuff.’

‘no, hey.’ his hand is moving to cover hers on the table before he even knows it’s moving. ‘if it’s important to you, i wanna hear it. can’t promise i’ll understand it though.’

saanvi’s smile is bright and shoots warmth straight through ben’s whole body all the way to his toes. ‘well, i think i’ve found a way to alter the genome sequence we’re using for the trial so that we can open it up to more kids,’ she starts cautiously, making sure he understands the size of the discovery. when ben returns her grin, in awe of her as always, she continues on, talking about genetics and research and types of cancers. of course he doesn’t really get what she’s saying, but it’s worth it to watch the way she gestures and how her eyebrows crease together and how her head tilts when she’s thinking hard. saanvi talks and talks, but ben doesn’t mind it at all- in fact, there’s really nothing else he’d rather be doing. 

but the question-answer-question-answer flow of their conversation is broken by the shrill ring of ben’s phone. he only answers it because he recognizes the number, and shoots saanvi his best puppy dog eyes. she just laughs a little and mouths something about him getting out of the nerd talk. 

‘that was my source at 1pp,’ he explains after he hangs up. 

the way saanvi’s jaw drops is kind of comical. ‘you have a source at one police plaza? as in at nypd headquarters?’

‘sure.’ he shrugs like it’s no big deal, but he’s kind of enjoying the proud look she’s giving him. ‘he works in records and five years ago, i passed him in quantitative computing despite his failing grade.’ 

‘saint ben.’ saanvi leans back with an odd but fond look on her face. ‘what did your source say?’

‘he found something linking the commissioner to some gang. dropped some files off at the apartment, want to come take a look?’

ben’s answer is just saanvi grabbing her white lab coat and phone- she’s already determined to solve the mystery. the wind through the cafe tables only to pull open the front door and feel rain, cool in the early spring air. 

ben immediately steps back into the threshold, digging through his bag for his umbrella. he can’t find it or the backup, and turns to tell saanvi as much only to find her not at his side. ben almost panics before bed looks back outside to see her standing in the rain. 

‘saanvi!’ he almost yells. ‘get out of the rain, you’ll get sick!’

but then she turns back to look at him, and wow- 

she’s beautiful, he realizes. despite the rain, the sun is still peeking out from behind a few clouds and those small rays of sun line up perfectly with her face, illuminating the sharp line of her nose and the soft edge of her jaw. her black hair looks somehow darker, glimmering and shining where the water hits and her hands are lithe when they run through it. she’s laughing, so absolutely gleeful at the fact that she’s soaking and probably very cold and people all around her are running for cover that it’s infectious, and ben has never wanted to dance in the rain more. 

maybe that’s why, when saanvi outstretches her hand for his, ben drops his things and takes it. 

she pulls him out into the rain so hard that they both almost slip. he’s ready with an admonishment, a plea to be safe, but she knows his facial expressions and can see what’s coming. 

‘oh, c’mon ben!’ saanvi says through her laugh. ‘enjoy it! don’t worry so much. look- close your eyes and feel it.’

and she does, she tips her head up to the sky and let’s her eyes fall shut. saanvi doesn’t flinch as the cold water falls on her and instead just revels in it. ben can’t _not_ look at her. he can’t not watch the way the rain drops get caught in her long eyelashes and fall down her cheeks. her lips are parted just barely, and a blissful smile graces them. 

_saanvi bahl is so beautiful_ , and suddenly ben stone is is overcome with the overwhelming desire to melt into her, to pull her in close and kiss her until he can no longer breathe. 

but that’s dangerous, and terrifying to think about, and _definitely_ not safe, so instead, he just closes his eyes, tilts his face up to the sky, and lets the rain wash over him. 

~

two days after the whole rain thing, and ben has been able to convince himself that it was only a passing moment, a spur of the moment urge where he’d lost his head just for a second. he can’t stand the thought that maybe it had been exactly what he wanted. what he _wants_. 

he’s hanging out with olive, doing a whole lot of nothing. it’s wonderful. ben has missed so much in her life, and he’s trying to make it up to her in any way that he can. recently, that’s manifested itself in america’s next top model marathons. ben should probably be embarrassed at how much he enjoys them, but he doesn’t quite care when it’s just him and olive screaming at the television about who should have won whatever challenge. it’s nice. it’s new. olive is so much like him, he’s realizing. no- _remembering_. she’s always taken after him, no matter how much she may look like grace. 

anyways, that’s when saanvi calls him. ben motions to olive not to pause the episode and jogs into the hallway to answer. 

‘hello?’

‘hey can you do me a favor?’ she asks. her voice sounds… not like her. she sniffles a bit, and ben can’t help smiling as he leans against the wall. 

‘are you sick?’ he asks, voice falling just to the sly side of the scale. ‘you know, i think i remember telling you not to stand out in the rain, but i may be wrong.’

‘shut up, ben, i’m _dying_.’ saanvi’s voice is petulant and playful, although she does sound pretty sick. ‘listen, can you run by my office for me? there’s some paperwork i’ve gotta do before this weekend for my patient’s hcc claims.’

‘you work too hard.’ ben closes his eyes and tries to picture what she’s doing right now. sitting in her apartment. probably curled up on the couch, fingers toying with the edge of that blanket she has, the one her grandmother made her. 

there’s a rustling in the other end of the line, and ben imagines her snuggling further into her blanket. ‘so you’ve said.’ there’s silence, and he realizes she’s yawning. ‘i’m probably gonna be asleep soon, you know where the spare key is? you can just drop it on the counter.’

‘alright,’ he agrees. ‘get some sleep. you’ve got cold medicine?’

saanvi’s response is only an affirmative hum, and ben can tell she’s exhausted, so he just promises to be by soon and hangs up. he walks back into the sitting room and doesn’t realize that olive is staring at him until he flops down in the couch next to her. 

‘what?’

olive just raises her eyebrows at her father. ‘nothing. was that saanvi?’

this question kind of comes out of nowhere, it startles him. ‘uhh… yeah. how’d you know?’

‘just the way your voice changes when you talk to her.’ his daughter says it like it’s a _fact_ , like everyone knows it. ‘anyways, what did she want?’

‘she’s sick- wait, what do you _mean_ ‘the way my voice changes’? what are you- what do you mean?’

olive looks him dead on, unblinking, and god does she remind ben of himself. ‘you get all soft and quiet. and you look at her like she’s the sun. dad, come on, haven’t you realized?’

ben just stares. he doesn’t dare say anything. olive stares back. they stay like that, neither moving, until olive’s phone goes of. 

‘cal,’ she explains after checking it. ‘he wants to know if i can go pick him up. you going to saanvi’s?’

she’s acting like nothing happened and everything is totally fine. ben has NO idea what just happened, so he plays along. 

‘uh, yeah. gonna stop by her lab first.’

‘okay. see you tomorrow,’ olive calls behind her as she makes her way to the door. she pauses after she throws it open, and turns back over her shoulder to look at ben. ‘it’s okay, you know. you’re allowed to be happy.’ he‘s stunned as his daughter smiles at him softly. ‘love you. see ya.’

and then she’s gone, and ben is floundering again. 

~

ben does as saanvi asks him. he always does, but this feels- _different_ , maybe, or new.  
something has changed, but he’s not quite sure what. he picks up her paperwork in a daze, he runs by the store in a daze, he almost misses his subway stop because he can’t stop thinking about what olive had said. realize what? 

she’s asleep when he gets there, right there on the couch where he’d pictured her. as ben quietly rearranges the blanket to cover her better, one of her hands shoots out from underneath to grab his wrist. 

‘ben?’ her voice is sick and he can hear how congested she is. 

‘yeah, it’s me,’ ben reassures her. ‘go back to sleep.’

and she does, almost immediately. ben sets to work cleaning up her apartment a little, the papers strewn everywhere a stark difference from her almost clinically clean office at the hospital. saanvi still isn’t awake by the time he’s done, so he starts preparing the soup he picked up at the store. 

the smell of food gets her up. in no time, ben can hear the soft patter of her socked feet on the hardwoods. 

‘hey,’ he says, giving her a small smile from his spot at the stove. ‘feel better?’

‘a little.’ she looks impossibly small in her huge jumper as she comes over to steal a bite of the soup on the stove. ‘shit, that’s good. i thought i told you that you could just drop that stuff off? i don’t wanna get you sick.’

‘thanks. it’s my nonna’s recipe. this stuff will cure you in twenty four hours, guaranteed.’ ben fixes her a bowl and pushes her to sit down at the kitchen table. ‘and you did, but i had a feeling you hadn’t eaten, so. here i am.’

saanvi is able to eat two full bowls of soup, and ben feels himself taking a deep breath. she’s alright. she’ll be fine. she takes a look around her apartment, eyebrows creased, before she gasps. 

‘ben stone!’ she yells. ‘did you clean my apartment?’

ben can’t help but look sheepish. ‘yeah. i mean, you’re sick so i just did it. no big deal.’

saanvi looks equally affronted and grateful. ‘you didn’t have to.’

‘i wanted to. i’m told i make a very good live-in boyfriend.’

ben doesn’t mean to say it. it comes out so quickly that he isn’t even sure he _does_ say it. but when he sees the way saanvi’s shoulders rise just slightly and how her smile falters for a split second, he knows she heard it. 

he needs to save this. ‘you can make it up to me by helping me clean these bowls,’ ben says quickly. 

saanvi relaxes a bit, and gets up to start the sink. ‘how’s grace?’ she asks suddenly. 

ben hands her his bowl, and studies her face. she won’t meet his eyes. ‘pregnant,’ he sighs. ‘and still not talking to me.’

at this, saanvi’s expression softens. ‘i’m sorry,’ she whispers. her hand comes up to rest on his cheek. 

‘don’t be. we had problems five years ago, we have problems now.’ his head falls into her hand a little. 

saanvi drops her hand and finishes washing up. once she’s done, she hops up on the counter across from him. ‘i’ve found that time doesn’t solve problems, it only makes them bigger.’

ben often has to remind himself that she’s a lot younger than him. she’s so wise, and a lot better at this kind of thing than him, so he nods in agreement. he’s speechless, drawn in by the way her eyes sparkle in the golden hour light that leaks in through her windows and how her cardigan just barely slips off her shoulder. he steps forward into her space, brain screaming _no!_ while his heart yells at him to do it and before he knows it, ben is _kissing_ saanvi. 

her lips are soft and he can feel her eyelashes flutter against his cheeks as she leans into it just a bit. it’s magnificent, the way their lips fit together.

but just like that, it’s over. saanvi gasps and pushes ben back and he stumbles away from her a little dazed. had he misread everything ? had he just risked it all for- for nothing? 

‘i’m sorry-‘

‘ben you can’t _do_ that, not when-‘

‘i’m sorry i shouldn’t have done that, i’m gonna go-‘

‘ _ben_!’

but he doesn’t stick around to hear what saanvi has to say. he yanks his jacket off the peg in the hallway and runs all of the ten blocks home. 

~

ben, in all of his wisdom, doesn’t call or text saanvi for four days. 

he cant bring himself to, not after that stunning rejection in her apartment. maybe the distance is making it worse, but he can’t. it’s all too much. so instead, ben sits in his apartment, alone, and thinks about what he might have done wrong. was it him? had he just read the situation horribly wrong? does she not love him like he loves her?

because he does. ben stone loves saanvi bahl. 

he can’t pinpoint exactly when he fell. maybe it was slowly, during mealtimes or long days of detective work with her. or maybe it was all at once. that day in the rain. all of the times she’d danced in his kitchen to whatever horrible indie music his neighbor blasted. whenever it was, she’s consumed his mind and wrapped herself around his soul so tightly that without her, ben finds it hard to breathe. 

_dad, come on, haven’t you realized?_ olive’s voice rings in his head. and now he has. 

so he texts her. 

she doesn’t answer the first day, or the second. on the third day, cal comes home from his treatment and says ‘i saw doctor bahl. she looked sad. are you guys fighting?’ and ben knows he has to do something. 

he goes to her office, but she’s not there. he wanders the hospital, but he can’t find her. she’s avoiding him, he realizes, but that just makes him more determined. 

ben sits outside of saanvi’s office for 45 minutes before she finally comes back. she looks up from whatever file she’s looking at in shock when he calls her name. 

‘ben? what- what are you doing here?’

‘saanvi, we need to talk.’ his voice sounds so urgent. he can’t help the way his heart speeds up at the sight of her. 

she looks back down at her file dismissively. ‘if it’s about a calling, go to michaela. i’m busy.’

saanvi starts to walk off, but ben puts himself right in front of her. 

‘vi, c’mon, you know what i’m talking about,’ he pleads. 

her face is flat, and when she speaks, so is her voice. ‘you ignore me for six days and now you want to talk?’

‘i’m sorry, god i’m so stupid, i should’ve- i should’ve _called_ or come back, but i was just- i wasn’t thinking.’

‘no, you weren’t. you didn’t stop for a second to think about how kissing me would make me feel?’

‘you didn’t want to?’

‘ _of course i wanted to_!’ she shouts. there are tears in her eyes and ben hates that he put them there. ‘of _course_ i did. but something that meant nothing to you meant everything to me, and that’s not fair.’

ben steps back like he’s been slapped. ‘something that meant nothing- saanvi, what are you talking about?’ 

the first of her tears spills onto her cheek. ‘i won’t let myself be your rebound from grace, ben. i won’t. i can’t do that.’

saanvi turns away from him again. ben can suddenly see the rest of his life laid out in front of him, and everywhere he looks, he sees _her_. something wild overcomes him, and he can feel that if he doesn’t fix this right now, he will never have another chance with saanvi bahl. so, in the riskiest move of his life, ben grabs her and and spins her around to face him. 

and he kisses her. 

hard. not soft like in her apartment. he tries to put weeks of longing and love and desperation into one kiss, and he knows she feels it when instead of pushing him away again, she kisses him back. they finally break apart breathless and ben can feel her tears drying in his cheeks. 

‘it’s you, saanvi,’ he gasps out. ‘it’s _only_ you. can’t you see that? god, i love you more than i’ve ever loved anyone ever before. and if you don’t feel the same way you’ve gotta tell me now.’

for a moment, saanvi just stares up at him, dark eyes wide. the doubt comes back, whispering in ben’s mind that he’s made the wrong choice, risked it all for nothing. and then, just as he feels the urge to run again, she kisses him. 

‘i love you too,’ she whispers, and their matching grins are blinding. 

~

say you survived a plane crash. would you ever feel safe in a plane again? probably not. but maybe risk, to you,would seem more relative. big things may seem smaller. small things may feel bigger. ben stone has never been one for risks, but saanvi bahl is teaching him that it’s all relative. he’s a mathematician, he understands the concept perfectly. but really, none of it matters to him when he’s with her. 

with her, and surrounded by her love, ben stone is safe.

**Author's Note:**

> well, what did you think? loved it? absolutely hated it? let me know in the comments below! drop a kudos if benvi is endgame :p
> 
> you can come yell at me on tumblr, where i’m doctor-sharpe, or on twitter, where i’m @heiensharpe


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